1. Field of the Invention
This application relates generally to deformable image registration and, more specifically, to systems and methods for visualizing a transformation resulting from a deformable registration of images.
2. Description of Related Art
Medical imaging systems, such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR), ultrasound (US), positron emission tomography (PET), or the like, produce a two-dimensional image of a patient. These systems can further capture a series of two-dimensional images of the patient which form slices of a three-dimensional volume of the patient. While these medical images provide useful information alone, additional information is gained through comparisons between medical images. For instance, comparisons between medical images facilitate condition monitoring, treatment planning, and/or diagnosis. Such comparisons can be between slices of a single capture volume of a patient, between slices of different volumes of a patient (e.g., captured at different times), or between images captured via different modalities (e.g. ultrasound and MR).
To enable comparisons, the images can be registered through utilization of a registration algorithm such as a deformable registration algorithm having a large number of degrees of freedom. Such registration can result in a high degree of warping to the images in order to be brought into alignment. Moreover, various locations undergo differing amounts of transformation and/or directions of movement. While flexibility in the transform enables dramatically varying images to be registered, interpreting or evaluating the transformation can be difficult.